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Competition Arena > RepeatString
SRM 698 (Google) · 2016-08-27 · by cgy4ever · Dynamic Programming
Class Name: RepeatString
Return Type: int
Method Name: minimalModify
Arg Types: (string)
Problem Statement

Problem Statement

A string S is called a square if there is some string T such that S = T + T. For example, the strings "", aabaab" and "xxxx" are squares, but "a", "aabb" and "aabbaa" are not.

You are given a String s. You want to change s into a square. You may do the following operations:
  • Insert a new character anywhere into the string (including its beginning and end).
  • Remove a single character.
  • Replace a single character by another character.

Please compute and return the smallest number of operations needed to change the given s into a square. Note that this is always possible: for example, you can remove all characters (one at a time).

Constraints

  • s will contain between 1 and 50 characters, inclusive.
  • Each character in s will be a lowercase English letter ('a'-'z').
Examples
0)
"aba"
Returns: 1

One of the optimal solutions is to remove the 'b'. This changes the given s into the square "aa".

1)
"adam"
Returns: 1

Here, one optimal solution is to change the 'm' to 'd' to get "adad".

2)
"x"
Returns: 1

This time one optimal solution is to append another 'x' to get "xx".

3)
"aaabbbaaaccc"
Returns: 3

For example, we can change this string into "aaabbbaaabbb". Note that this requires three operations, not one.

4)
"repeatstring"
Returns: 6

Submissions are judged against all 134 archived test cases, of which 5 are shown here. Case numbers match the judge’s.

Coding Area

Language: C++17 · define a public class RepeatString with a public method int minimalModify(string s) · 134 test cases · 2 s / 256 MB per case

Submitting as anonymous